MEP says 'disgraceful' visit to Iran should be scrapped

MEP Struan Stevenson

British MEP Struan Stevenson has called for a planned "friendship" delegation from parliament to the "murderous" regime in Iran to be called off immediately.
Details of the trip come 24 hours after the EU announced fresh sanctions against the Iranian regime.
Stevenson, a Scottish Conservative MEP who is chairman of parliament's friends of a free Iran intergroup, said the visit to Tehran scheduled in less than two weeks should be cancelled, if necessary by the assembly's president Martin Schulz.On October 26 the 16-strong delegation will meet with a 'friendship delegation' from the Iranian parliament led by Kazem Jalili who is said to "boast" on his website of his membership of the Bassidj paramilitary force and the Iranian revolutionary guards corps, which is on the EU and US terrorist list.
Jalali also chairs the Iranian parliament's 'committee for friendship' with Syria.
In a recent speech he praised the victory of Hizbollah over the "Zionist regime" in the 33-day war in Lebanon, claiming it to be one of Iran's "greatest achievements".
Speaking at a news conference in parliament on Tuesday, Stevenson said, "Schulz should cancel this visit immediately."
He added, "It is scandalous that a large official delegation should be going to Tehran.
"Only yesterday the EU has instituted even tougher sanctions on Iran, this simply sends mixed messages.
"The visit will be ruthlessly exploited for propaganda purposes by the Iranian regime, and it will come as a huge disappointment to the tens of thousands of courageous Iranian citizens who have repeatedly risked their lives to protest against the oppression of the mullahs' regime and its support for Bashar Al-Assad in Syria.
"It is necessary to understand the nature of the regime that our European parliament delegation will meet. Amnesty International says that their use of the death penalty now exceeds any other country in the world, averaging around two to three executions daily. Many executions are conducted in public where the victims are suffocated slowly by being hoisted by a rope attached to a crane.
"There are currently 143 children on death row awaiting execution after they reach the age of 18. Last year, they hanged a Dutch woman on trumped up charges of involvement in drug smuggling, when in fact she had been originally arrested for participating in a political protest. The Dutch government closed its embassy and withdrew its ambassador in protest.
"The Iranian regime continues to enrich plutonium for the clear purpose of building nuclear weapons, despite repeated protests from the west. A nuclear-armed Iran will seek regional dominance and be a threat to peace and stability in the Middle East and to the world. Iran already has massive destabilising influence in neighbouring Iraq."
The delegation will be led by Finnish Green deputy Tarja Cronberg. The last parliament delegation to go to Tehran was in 2007 and was led by German Green Angelika Beer.
On the day of their arrival, there was a mass public hanging in Tehran in what was seen as a protest to any EU criticism of human rights in Iran.
Beer later criticised EU sanctions and claimed they had not resolved the on-going human rights violations in Iran.
Stevenson's demand comes the day after EU governments agreed further sanctions against Iran's banking, shipping and industrial sectors.
The move is designed to crank up financial pressure on Tehran in the hope of drawing it into serious negotiations on its nuclear programme.
The decision by EU foreign ministers reflected mounting concerns over Iran's nuclear intentions and Israeli threats to attack Iranian atomic installations if a mix of sanctions and diplomacy fails to lead to a peaceful solution.
On Monday, EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said she hoped that turning up the heat on the Islamic Republic would persuade it to make concessions, and that negotiations could resume "very soon".
"I absolutely do think there is room for negotiations. I hope we will be able to make progress very soon, "said Ashton, who is representing the United States, China, Russia, Britain, France and Germany in their on-and-off talks with Iran.
By Martin Banks - 16th October 2012 

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New York police link nine 2012 plots to Iran, proxies

By Mark Hosenball

LONDON (Reuters) - New York police believe Iranian Revolutionary Guards or their proxies have been involved so far this year in nine plots against Israeli or Jewish targets around the world, according to restricted police documents obtained by Reuters.

Reports prepared this week by intelligence analysts for the New York Police Department (NYPD) say three plots were foiled in January, three in February and another three since late June. Iran has repeatedly denied supporting militant attacks abroad.

The documents, labeled "Law Enforcement Sensitive," said that this week's suicide bomb attack in Bulgaria was the second plot to be unmasked there this year.

The reports detail two plots in Bangkok and one each in New Delhi, Tbilisi, Baku, Mombasa and Cyprus. Each plot was attributed to Iran or its Lebanese Hezbollah militant allies, said the reports, which were produced following the bombing in Burgas, Bulgaria of a bus carrying Israeli tourists.

Iran on Thursday dismissed "unfounded statements" by Israel linking Tehran to the Burgas blast, saying they were politically motivated accusations which underscored the weakness of the accusers.

Wednesday's bombing in the Black Sea city is listed in a document headed "Suspected Iranian and/or Hezbollah-linked Plots Against Israeli or Jewish Targets: 2012 Chronology", the latest of the nine 2012 plots linked to the Islamic Republic or its proxies.

U.S. officials say they increasingly concur with Israeli assessments that Iran and its proxies organized the killing of seven Israeli tourists in Burgas by a suicide bomber after they boarded an airport bus.

One U.S. official said Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed Shi'ite Muslim militia, had in the past carried out suicide bombings.

Hezbollah says that while it carried out suicide bombings against Israeli army posts in south Lebanon when it was occupied, until 2000, it has never staged attacks outside Lebanon.

The U.S. official noted that the Burgas bombing occurred on the 18th anniversary of the bombing of a Jewish center in Buenos Aires, which Argentina linked to Iran.

The official said the Bulgaria attack appeared relatively sophisticated as it suggested those behind it had gathered intelligence on possible targets in advance.

MORE PLOTS, SOPHISTICATION VARIES

A second U.S. official said U.S. federal authorities' tally of alleged Iran-linked plots in 2012 largely paralleled the NYPD list.

Mark Regev, spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said in the past year there had been "20 Iranian attempts at terrorist attacks abroad, in which there was direct involvement of five Iranians, two Hezbollah operatives".

After the Bulgaria bus bombing, a senior U.S. law enforcement official said New York police had increased their counter-terrorism focus on Jewish neighborhoods and institutions, over concerns of Iranian attacks on U.S. soil should U.S. or Israeli tensions with Iran escalate.

In a two-page paper summarizing its assessment of the alleged pattern of Iranian-related plots this year, NYPD analysts said that through its own Revolutionary Guard and Hezbollah, Iran had "sharply increased its operational tempo and its willingness to conduct terrorist attacks targeting Israeli interests and the International Jewish community worldwide".

But the paper noted that many of this year's plots lacked the sophistication and precision that characterized earlier plots linked to Iran.

Some bombs used in the recent plots shared certain features such as the use of military grade plastic explosives and magnets to attach the device to metal targets. While some had been detonated by remote control, others had relied on the "crude but effective tactic of pulling the pin on a hand grenade."

The summary said the plotters had on occasion used local criminal elements, citing a plot in Baku where Iranian Revolutionary Guards agents provided weapons, equipment and selected the target for attack by Azeri criminals.

"This is an extremely dangerous combination," the report concluded, adding that the geographic spread of the attacks and the willingness to go with less sophisticated plots "may add to the danger rather than lessen it."

(Additional reporting by Dan Williams in Jerusalem; Editing by Jon Boyle and Mark Heinrich)